365 Days Of Me: January 17 -- The Retreat (Part Five)

[shelbycub]

(THE FINAL SERMON)
With a night of relatively decent sleep, I woke up with a moment of utter clarity.  Before I had a chance to comprehend where I was, and before I had a chance to let the fear creep in, it occurred to me that I hadn't made but one friend in the previous three days of The Retreat.

This was not a new concept, I was a loner in school

Comments

[djmadadam]

I know from your repeatedly having said so that this hopeful romance doesn't turn out the way you'd hoped, but the journey between where you've left us off here and how you arrive at that realization is worth anticipating. On the other hand, you've also been expressing here and elsewhere that this exercise has been psychologically exhausting, and so I think it's important to recognize that there's more than just readership in your audience but also empathy.

I've been in this place, wanting my sexuality to be mirrored in others, and in my case it was obsessively so such that I think I alienated a few high school classmates and had a good number of them mocking me behind my back... Did you get the phone call?, referring to the one in which I'd come out and wait for my classmate to come out to me, too, in turn. Except rarely did he. Until, one day, one did.